


The company you keep

by kasiopeia



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post Big Damn Movie, multiple POVs, serenity is a lonely place but they are sticking together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 02:56:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/743375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kasiopeia/pseuds/kasiopeia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaylee thinks there are some truths that are true no matter what. Mal will say something stupid (but be kind in his stupidity), Zoe will hit her target every time (even if her hands shake when she thinks no one is watching), Jayne will always like to stir people up, sit back and enjoy the show. River will always surprise her, Simon will simultaneously be the best thing and the worst thing that ever happened to her and Inara will always be wiser than her own good (except when it comes to herself).</p>
<p>And Serenity? Well, Serenity will stay true. And there is something to be said for second chances.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The company you keep

 

Kaylee thinks there are some truths that are true no matter what. Mal will say something stupid (but be kind in his stupidity), Zoe will hit her target every time (even if her hands shake when she thinks no one is watching), Jayne will always like to stir people up, sit back and enjoy the show. River will always surprise her, Simon will simultaneously be the best thing and the worst thing that ever happened to her and Inara will always be wiser than her own good (except when it comes to herself).

And Serenity? Well, Serenity will stay true. And there is something to be said for second chances.

 

 

 

 

 

River feels better now (she does), but sometimes Serenity is crowding her. Everybody's thoughts are so loud and strange. She doesn't make sense then; she knows it, but she can't stop it. So she watches and she listens and she tries not to open her mouth. 

 

(Simon doesn't like it when she comes out all scrambled and in pieces, his thoughts growing sharp edges that can cut her if she is not careful.)

Simon likes to help. When he is helping someone, the reds in his mind will turn a glowing warm yellow, and she basks in it like the sun. He likes to feel useful. River has found that he is almost too helpful. His measures of helping her are highly impracticable and almost impossible to control. And she craves control; she wants her brain to be easy to work out. Everything has its place and everything should _be_ in its place. The elements are all out of order and no one was home to make it right. They thought the girl was crazy, but it was a misconception; her mind was tangled and the words didn't come out right. 

 

(Simon is an inappropriate conversation partner when something doesn't go his way.)

 

 

 

 

 

Zoe dreams of angels and blackness, and the tight, tight pull of the string attached to her heart. The string that in her dreams hold Wash at the other end; he pulls her, pulls her towards the dark brightness. In her dreams she is light as the wind and heavy as a stone. She is floating and falling at the same time. She does not know what it is like to have solid ground beneath her anymore. Wash is there; he is there and he never lets her fall.

And sooner or later the dream ends, her hands clutching the sheets (looking, always looking, for something that is not there) and it starts all over again.

 

 

 

 

 

She's here, she's here, she's here. She is still here.

Mal says it to himself over and over, every time he doubts her feelings, hell, his feelings even. He sits at the table in the mess, and he tries not to watch Inara as she moves around the kitchen. 

 

(He fails.)

 

He doesn't know what to say, or do. Words elude him and when he does talk what she hears isn't what he means. But she's here, she's here, she's here, she is _here_. On his ship, but still just out of reach. Sometimes he feels like he can't quite breathe; longing and sadness and fear wrapping around him in a tight knit and he wants to be stronger, he wants to be braver, but he knows that he has a long way to go. 

 

(They are not ready. Not yet.)

 

Then she walks by him and runs her fingers softly over his shoulders, a casual touch that gives him the ability to breathe again. 

(Because it's not like last time. It's not. There is a trust there that wasn't there before, an unspoken agreement that they will try to make this work.)

 

 

 

 

 

River likes dancing; when she dances, she floats and she doesn't need to feel broken. 

She is in the hold, using the space and making her own music in her head. Jayne is watching her from the sidewalk. His thoughts are on childhood feasts and a dancing family. She sees a green field, an apple pie and children running around. His thoughts are yellow like a sunrise, but with a shade of melancholy red for a past lost and dreams changed.

River doesn't mind him watching her. Jayne's thoughts wash over her with an old detached sadness; it doesn't have much to do with her. But later, later, later she can feel Simon walk in and stand above her, and his thoughts close in around her. She can see herself dancing, but not here; on a big stage, she's in a beautiful white dress and the lights are only on her. Simon is in the audience and their parents are sitting next to him, smiling and proud of her. She cries silent tears then and wishes for something she doesn't have.

It is what could never be, something they both lost. She stops in her tracks and looks up at him. 

"I'm sorry," she says and the tears are falling fast and making everything around her blurry.

"Oh, don't be, mei mei." Simon smiles through his own tears. "What we have now can be just as good."

And she knows that he means it, that he has come to love Serenity like she always has and she smiles through her tears. And then she is dancing again, twirling around and around until the whole universe is spinning and she is not the only one who is fractured anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

Some truths will stay the same no matter what, and some things will inevitably change. As always, the world is wonderfully out of rhythm, and while some things are better, some things are definitely worse. The horrible truth about wars is that those who fought in them will never be completely free. But some days will be better than others, some memories outstay their welcome, while others just vanish into thin air. Because life does go on, and that is the biggest truth of them all.

 

And Serenity is still flying, and she helps keep the blackness at bay. 

 

(Most days that is enough.)


End file.
